Course Description:

“Medieval Cultures: Multiculturalism in the British Isles before 1000” takes a world/comparative approach to the history of the British Isles in the first millennium. We will examine people groups from the Iron Age through waves of migrations (e.g., Celts, Picts, Angles, Saxons, Vikings), considering issues of identity and cross-cultural encounters involving conflict and assimilation in language, religion, and material culture. We will end up in the year 1000, placing the British Isles in a global context.
The course is writing intensive, which means we will use writing to learn history as well as learning to write history. Half of the grade is based on an individual research paper due at the end of the term, but broken down into discrete tasks through the semester. Other writing assignments are incorporated into class discussion of the primary sources and will build skills for, and contribute to, your research paper. Class participation includes in-class discussion and writing exercises. The final exam will be essay and short answer, a cumulative review of the semester's reading.